How to Make a Cup of Tea (Poem)

 How to Make a Cup of Tea

1. Boil the water

She used to watch the metal kettle boil

Told me to listen closely for sweet melodies

Whistling through the air

Watch the glass as it steams

 after a flick of a switch

Fill it to the brim she said

As she lay sick in bed

2. Choose your mug

Thick metal mugs,

Tall mugs and mugs from Goodwill

Her mug sits perpetually on the cold counter

She has two shelves, one Disney

The other, everything else

Always told me I had too many

And I was wasting the space

But she still made room

3. Pick your tea

I’ve always preferred black tea

She likes peppermint and teas from

Wholefoods

I told her in steaming arguments

I’d never be like her

Her pain is a neat box of tea

My pain is loose

We’ll never have the same taste

And that’s okay

4. Pour your boiling water into your mug with the tea bag or loose-leaf tea

You never got angry

When I poured hot water on my hand for the first time

You told me to learn and grow, to try again and again

I said the same thing to you, over

And over

And over again

Even now, while you're cleaning up your spill

I’ll keep making a cup of tea for you

5. Let the tea steep

Rotted white porch steps

Tables made for pretend

Painted desks and bedside tables

Kitchen counters and wicker trays

Tiled bathroom floors

All great places to let tea steep

6. Enjoy

In the morning, you make your cup of tea for work

I make mine for school

Stained cups, continuous use

A list of sticky notes, a specific mug,

Shower at 8 and makeup at 8:30

The most beautiful women all have routines

And filling the tea kettle for you

It is my favorite part of all.

poetry

         Maybe this year I'll post my poetry

        Or maybe for my own sanity

        I will not participate in vulgarity

        and I will not post my poetry.

I wrote this trying to fold my laundry

    I've rewritten this at least 5 times, and every time my delusional thoughts get in the way of any eloquence I have left. To sum up my rambling behaviors, I'm so scared of people leaving me that I don't know what to do with myself. All of the things I worry about come from this fear and I don't know how to deal with it. I don't want to be left alone again, I don't want everything I've worked for to be for nothing, and beyond all that I'm scared the people I love will look at me as if I am nothing but a monster. I can't do it on my own anymore, I keep trying to, hoping no one will see me in my weakest state. I'm far too prideful and my refusal to ask for any kind of help or say something I'm scared to say in fear of being abandoned needs to end. I can't live like this, how am I supposed to ever be a good daughter, sister, or wife if I can't ever let myself need people. I'm scared, so scared. The kind of fear that you felt when you were young when you needed to turn off all the lights in the house or anything like that. I don't want to be alone, but by expecting myself to be perfect and to figure everything out on my own, I'm becoming the worst version of myself. I feel selfish that I need the people I love like I can't consider anyone else's life. I feel like I'm at the worst crossroads, be selfish or continue to be a sacred dog. I don't want anyone to leave me and every day I fear they will if I do one thing wrong, I'm not perfect and that's terrifying. I want to hide and forget I exist, only for a bit though, I need to finish my laundry and hope that no one will leave, because I think it's time I fully stop being reliant only on myself. Fuck leaning into it, I need to be held.

If I were a fruit, I'd be a pomegranate

         Whenever I start feeling anxious again, I always feel compelled to write. Like some creative, or maybe something worse, digs out of my ribcage and covers me in a mix of bile and blood. The feelings I feel have always been visceral, or at least how I describe them. It feels as if I almost see myself as an animal of some kind. When these feelings emerge, I shed some innate part of myself and become what I have always been: A dog that bites when scared. Recently, I've pinpointed where this stems from, this bile fear that seeps from every part of me. Shocker, it's hormonal. Currently, I'm on hormone pills to try and regulate myself, but recently I've felt the same as how I used to feel, completely frayed at the edges. For the first two weeks of a month, I'm fine, I feel happy, but for the next two weeks, I feel utterly destroyed. 4

    All I want to do is apologize, cry, curl into a ball, and be forgotten about. I can't think straight and I know I'm being annoying to the people I love. Every word people say to me I want to scream at or overanalyze. When I feel these emotions I feel like the rational part of me, is like going on vacation. 

    I don't want to ask for reassurance, that feels pathetic to me. I know, I'm trying to be more vulnerable and ask people for help, but I don't want to be needy. Maybe I already am though. I know I'm a clingy person, but I feel like being needy would just make me feel worse. I don't want to need people, I want to be able to handle things myself, I have before, so why can't I do it now. I feel so weak for needing reassurance and needing to be held. I don't want to feel like this, I'm supposed to become an adult and I can't handle a simple thing like hormonal anxiety? I don't want to feel these things. 

    Usually at night, I dream simple things, not many nightmares, but sometimes, I find anxiety creeping into my head while I sleep. I don't like to talk about my nightmares, they usually involve some sort of abandonment and death. I have the same dreams over and over, and I keep them to myself. I guess even if my blog acts as a cry for help a lot of times, I hate pity, I don't want someone I care about to pity me. So maybe that's why I try not to talk about my dreams often. 

    Frequently, I feel like all the feelings I feel now make me unlovable. Am I worth the mess I make? Do I add enough to people's lives to be worth all of this? There has to be a point where I'm such a mess that I'm unlovable, right? Will my boyfriend keep loving me even if I'm a mess? I don't know, I fear that a lot. I just hope, the feeling I feel doesn't get in the way of me living life, because beyond everything, I fear being left behind more than anything, I don't want anyone to leave me.

            I think If I were a fruit, I'd be a pomegranate



.

I Wish not to be Hysterical

     Some things are utterly true, then others I convince myself of. But I have found no way to distinguish the two on days like these. It's no one's fault really, not my sparrow, nor my friends, I just find difficulties dealing with this crushing anxiety. 

        Recently, the fear of death is looming ever so close that it's coupled with the feeling of wanting to vanish. I don't want to die, I just want to disappear for around two hours, with nothing around that can stress me out, I don't want to be alone with my thoughts, but absent of them. I want to be relaxed, and vanishing feels like the ultimate relaxation. I wonder what'd happen if I'd disappear. Who would be sad, who would be worried, and who would be happy? I often think about what'd happen if I'd die, not because I'm suicidal (thank god) but just because I'm curious. I want to know if the people I'd cry for, would cry for me, who would take my hoodies, and who would take my books. I'm beyond curious. My fear of death is becoming more prevalent, especially with sick parents. I feel bad, but I don't think I'd really grieve, I've accepted their deaths, I just fear being alone.

    My fear of loneliness is crushing, I fear being abandoned more than I fear death. I convince myself of things, I tell myself that my relationship is failing or my friends all hate me and the aforementioned, parents dying. I wish I could know how everyone's feeling and thinking. I need to know if I'm doing something wrong or if I'm the problem because I genuinely can't tell if I am or not. I feel bad because  I don't want to pressure people to constantly reassure me, but I need it. I don't just fear being alone, I'm terrified of it.

        This isn't an attempt to make me sound cool, but more of an attempt to better explain how I'm feeling. When I care about people and their upset, I feel that. Like when my sparrow is stressed, I know he's feeling stressed and then I feel the need to go into full comfort mode. But when I'm not confirmed about feelings or things it makes me more stressed. I feel this for every person I love, this intense need to know how they're feeling because I feel what they're feeling. Does this make sense? It makes sense to me because it's how I feel. Call me far too empathetic but slowly, I'm coming to terms with it and learning how to manage it. 

        Relationships are hard, especially serious relationships. I feel as if I'm overflowing with love, but when it comes to him, I'm fragile. No one has given me a handbook on how to have a relationship, especially when all my past relationships have been abusive. Now I've found my person and really the only person I've ever loved and I have to somehow figure out how to properly communicate, I know it's been more than a year, but all of this is still difficult sometimes. I'm trying to be the best girlfriend I can be even if I'm a mess. I'm a big hot mess but determined to make the person I love happy. I worry about him so much, I just want to know how he's feeling and I just want to do everything I can to make him relaxed and comfortable. We're different people, heavily so, but we work well with each other. I'm confident in our relationship, and even when I'm depressed I'm willing to run a million miles to make him happy. I have never felt love so deeply that I feel the need to do anything. I love feeling this, I love feeling needed and feeling like I will do anything for this person. I'm not lying when I'm saying I'd follow him across the world because I really would. I really love him, and nothing can get in the way of that, even if sometimes he's beyond annoying, I guess it's his job to do that though. 

    I'm sorry, but when I think about my sparrow, I start going off. My face feels all warm and I start tearing up a bit. I get excited and because of that, I guess I need him. Well, I know I do, but that's beside the point. Overall, I've been trying to feel better, I've been trying to take time out of my night to do some self-care, and making sure to do this regularly, and I'm trying not to fall asleep in my clothes. I'm thinking about getting melatonin to actually help me get sleep at night, and trying to use my art as a therapy again. It's helped me before and I need to start using it as a tool again. I need to take better care of myself, I've been lacking and I need to catch up! I've been drinking water, and I know it's small, but I've started making non-caffeinated tea at night! I think that'd be helpful with sleep and general relaxation. I also filled up my water bottle yesterday after I drank the whole thing, so that's an improvement. Getting up in the morning is still a struggle, but it's probably going to continue to be. I've been trying hard, partly for myself and partly for him, I know he worries about me so I'm trying extra hard. I'm going to be healthy, and I think when I feel good physically, that might help with how I'm feeling emotionally.

    I'll do everything I can to be stable, and along with that, everything I can do to make myself not worry. I'm going to get better, for myself and for him. I guess when you love someone, you'll do anything, and for him, I'll be the best I can be.

I've grown into a woman comfortable with misery

    

   I dislike myself sometimes. I feel malice toward my appearance, and my personality leaves much to be desired. Most of all I hate my mind, I hate the way it spills all around, covering my contentions in vile sludge. I feel as if some days, I drench my happiness in pure sorrow. I ruin what's great with fear. For a while, I was happy, I felt good, but now I feel the same emptiness that haunts me. I feel a crushing weight, that feeling that everyone will leave me or that I'm doing everything wrong. Those worries infest my brain and keep me up through the night. I can't sleep again, I keep lying to people saying I wake up through the night, but the reality is that, though I'm not fully awake, I am lying still in lucidity, processing every stimulus around me as if I am awake. I sit with my mind racing, and when I wake up I feel dead. I went through all today not as a human, but as a corpse. Everything annoys me and everything just makes me feel more miserable. I want to be held and not feel empty. But when I say that I feel like a child. I want the same people I snap at to hold me and tell me it's okay.  I don't deserve that though, I hate when people don't hold me up to what I do wrong, but I really want to forget that I'm not feeling good today.

    I want to forget my fear of abandonment, I want to not feel like the people I love are going to leave me. I don't want to upset the people I love or hurt them, but I feel like all I do sometimes is hurt. I feel as if I'm a porcupine, desperate to not stab others but end up doing just that. I have intense guilt that makes me feel as If the little things I do are astronomically terrible. I'm a mess really, I just don't want to be left by myself, I don't want to be alone. I'm so scared that everything I've planned and built will fall in front of me; The castle I've built for myself will crumble and fall and I'll be left completely alone. I don't know what I'd do if that happened. I'm desperate to hold on to everyone I love, I don't want them to leave me. I want to get married and have that life we've planned but I just don't want to mess everything up, I feel like I am though so what am I supposed to do. 

    I was doing so well with my anxiety and I felt stable for a second, but now I just feel empty again. I just want to feel better for a second. I'm trying, I really am.